Bamma Bama O'Wamma

On the other hand, if you play nice, we'll get along just fine (but ditch that old guy, would'ya?

Obama to critics: "ACORN voter fraud? We don't have no stinkin' voter fraud and if you say we do, we'll have you prosecuted!

Politics for a change!

Weicker Liker in the desert sands


Here's a battle fought and lost in Connecticut
Arizona ballot proposition seeks to block sales tax on real estate conveyances . In Connecticut, the original tax, a pet project of the despicable Lowell Weicker, I believe, was designed to hit just Gold Coast homes. When inflation caused the tax to reach all properties, not just those in Westport and Greenwich, the state kept the tax, doubled it for Gold Coast houses and even encouraged municipalities to double their own tax, while they were at it.

The Arizona proposition is being led by real estate agents, a fact duly noted by the paper covering the story, but here's the bit I like best:

John Wright, president of Arizona Education Association, said the proposition would stifle governments’ ability to discuss potential tax changes.
"It is an abuse of the Constitution; that’s what the Constitution is there for," Wright said. "It protects our right as citizens to discuss these issues."

Got to love those teachers - not content with looting property taxes and the general state coffers, they fume against any attempt to block still another source of revenue to pay for further pay raises.

But "it's for the kids", so that must be alright. I think public teachers are the biggest threat to the continuation of the United States that's out there, simply because they're determined to turn out multiple generations of mush-brained little collectivists. So I wouldn't give them a dime, and would force them out on the streets to try to earn an honest living.
Your opinion may differ.

So who's going to buy our mansions now?
Putin seeks to destroy oligarchs.

I suppose that if he ends up with all the money over there, Vlad might want to buy a chateau or two here, but that would still leave 120 or so of them unsold.

Don't you just hate when this happens?

24 Upland Road, $2.325 Million
The winner and still standing ...
The only house to go to contract this week. That makes seven for the month, in case you're counting.

Er, it can't happen here, right?
Brooklyn Real Estate tumbles alongside Wall Street

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Brooklyn home prices tumbled 5.6 percent in the third quarter as Wall Street job losses reduced demand for real estate in the New York borough across the East River from lower Manhattan.

The median sale price for a home in Brooklyn fell to $510,000 from $540,000 a year earlier, according to a report issued today by New York-based real estate appraiser Miller Samuel Inc. and broker Prudential Douglas Elliman Real Estate. The number of sales tumbled 38 percent to 2,298.

Unemployment and tighter credit standards are cutting demand for real estate in New York City, said Paul Purcell, a partner in real estate consulting firm Braddock & Purcell. New York City Comptroller William C. Thompson yesterday raised his forecast for job losses in the city's financial service industry to about 35,000 over the next two years, up from his earlier estimate of 25,000, as the U.S. economy worsens.

``It's getting tougher and tougher to get a mortgage in New York, even if you still have your Wall Street job,'' Purcell said in an interview. ``Most lenders have stopped counting bonuses as income, and for Wall Street workers, that's the bulk of their paycheck.''

From a reader, a modern parable

Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and the bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this:

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do. The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve. 'Since you are all such good customers, he said, 'I'm going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $80. The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer. So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the amounts each should pay.!

And so:

The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33%savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28%savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. 'I only got a dollar out of the $20,'declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,' but he got $10!' 'Yeah, that's right,' exclaimed the fifth man. 'I only saved a dollar, too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than I!' 'That's true!!' shouted the seventh man. 'Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? The wealthy get all the breaks!' 'Wait a minute,' yelled the first four men in unison. 'We didn't get anything at all. The system exploits the poor!' The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.
The next night the tenth man didn't show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill! And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how our tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics, University of Georgia

2 Meadow - Deer Park
And so it begins?
While technically listed in February, this house only neared completion in, I think, August or early September, when the first broker open house was held. Price was $16,250,000. Today, it dropped to $14,750,000. Just saying ....

Why buy the cow ...

Hawaii drops universal health care for children
Hawaii is dropping the only state universal child health care program in the country just seven months after it launched.
Gov. Linda Lingle's administration cited budget shortfalls and other available health care options for eliminating funding for the program. A state official said families were dropping private coverage so their children would be eligible for the subsidized plan.

"People who were already able to afford health care began to stop paying for it so they could get it for free," said Dr. Kenny Fink, the administrator for Med-QUEST at the Department of Human Services. "I don't believe that was the intent of the program."

Geeze, ya think? Fortunately, when the Blessed one takes his rightful place in Washington this winter, the free manna health care plan he enacts will have no such difficulties. Because it, like Him, will be perfect.

The Ol' Debbil Cheney
Reader Claudette says, speaking of Ol' Joe, the plumber from (Ohio? Nebraska? Somewhere west of here),

"He was a plant by the Republicans, and since Senator McCain introduced him to us and he is a freak we are not going to let him get off that easily."

Now how on earth can Claudette and her fellow DemmerKrat friends even get up in the morning, knowing that Bush and Cheney are so hard at work setting up the downfall of poor Obama. Imagine the complexity of this snare: first they find an actor to play "Joe the Plumber". Then they set him up in what looks to be his own yard but is in fact a sound stage rented for the day by the Republicans because they know, they just know, that Obama's gonna come down that street and stop by to see Joe. And here's an even more nefarious part of the scheme: every single person on that street, every house, was occupied by a Republican operative. Obama was doomed to fall into the trap no matter where he stopped, no matter whom he spoke with!!!

I guess my only question is, if Claudette and her friends can spot a Republican plant so easily, if they can tell a freak when they see one, how come Obama's so naive, so blind? What does that say about his prospects for dealing with world leaders? Shit, even Hugo's gonna strip him of everything and ship him home starkers. I fear for our country.

126 Cat Rock Rd.
This house ML# 70557 sold for $3,595,000 in June, 2001. It came back on the market in July of this year for $4,150,000 and was lowered 5% today to $3,950,000. Even if it sells for this new price, that's only a $355,000 "gain" (before commissions, taxes and all the other inevitabilities) or 1.4% per year for seven years. Gives a new perspective on how the market has appreciated, eh? And, of course, it hasn't sold yet.

Greetings from Vancouver

I ran into a friend this morning who in turn introduced me to his friend, visiting from Vancouver. This man told me that the Vancouver real estate market, which has been booming for years with bushels of international money, shut down early this summer "like turning off a spigot". Apparently Vancouver goes through these spells more frequently than Greenwich but the pattern seems similar: prices go up, which draws in builder/developers from throughout Canada (turns out, Vancouver's in Canada - who knew?)and everyone overbuilds,office buildings, condominium developments and huge, multi-million dollar mansions. This continues until the bust, when everything that's been so recently built comes rushing back onto the market at fire-sale prices. This, the Canadian said, acts like a vortex, sucking down everything around it and prices of existing homes drop into its maw.

I'm pretty sure we're witnessing the beginning of that phenomenon here. Hold on.

Solar powered tipis? Cool! I'll take that one!
If you believe the National Association of Realtors - and I rarely do - buyers want energy efficient features built into their new homes. There's a caveat, however - they don't buy what they say they want. In fact, according to NAR's latest (2007) poll, buyers want
Cars and Cable

"Buyers have energy efficiency on their minds, but they still like their big houses and multiple cars, too.

If you want to know the direction of your customers’ homebuying preferences, think big cars and big screens.

Almost 60 percent of home buyers are prepared to spend more for a house with an oversized garage, and almost 40 percent would do the same to get a house that’s ready for cable or satellite TV, NAR research shows.

Both of these figures are up substantially from 2004, when NAR conducted similar research. In that year, buyers were willing to spend a premium in only 6 percent of cases for a big garage and in less than 30 percent of cases for enhanced TV readiness.

With their rise, oversized garages now rank second among the most desired features buyers want, up from fifth place three years ago. TV readiness has also edged up.

And here's an article whose headline claims More Buyers Looking for Green Houses but the body says otherwise:

" NAR has begun a new program to certify agents as green agents. They will be able to understand what makes a property green, explain to clients the benefits of green building features and practices, distinguish between industry rating and classification systems, list and market green homes and buildings, discuss the financial grants and incentives available to homeowners, and guide buyers in purchasing resource-efficient homes, said Michelle Wardlaw, spokeswoman for NAR....
Despite the trend, in this housing market, buyers may not consider energy-efficiency as a goal in home buying ,[emphasis added]. They will look for energy-efficient homes if their ultimate goal is realizing cost savings after they buy. Many people are interested in that, but they have many choices available to them.

In the Phoenix area, one homeowner reported that the low-E windows and high-efficient air conditioning and heat have not attracted buyers. While some buyers were impressed with the amount of work put into making the house energy efficient, they ultimately bought elsewhere, commenting on the age of the kitchen, he said. In fact, he told buyers how low his electric bill was in the summer, but it made no difference to the potential buyers.

Other areas of the country are more proactive for looking for the green homes. Wardlaw said NAR created the Green Designation Subject Matter Expert Panel. Agents on the panel come from Portland, Ore.; Berkeley, Calif.; Winston-Salem, N.C.; and Sarasota, Fla. However, Wardlaw couldn't estimate how many requests for green homes agents receive on average per month".

Well if she can't, I can. The number of buyers who request a "green" home in this town is zero (okay, go ahead and write me that you specifically asked for such a house - you'll be the exception that proves the rule.) If you're building in Berkeley, you may be better off planting a grass roof and tossing a pair of Birkenstocks into the deal. But in Greenwich, build that 5 car garage, toss plasma TV's around like candy and build big, big, big. Then price it cheap, and you're done.

Nothing to see here, move along, move along
Thanks to a blizzard of "investigative journalism" we now know far more about the personal life, past associations and financial records of "Joe the Plumber" than we do about the man he dared criticize, Barack Obama. Why this huge interest in a mid-western plumber and why the decision to devote an army of reporters to investigate him when that interest was lacking and the army too busy to investigate, say, Barack's sweetheart land deal with an indicted Chicago pol and "developer", or how, exactly, Bill Ayres set up Barak in politics?

Because none of that's news, or, worse, it's old news and it's time to Move On. Besides, Joe the Plumber has a tax lien against him! We found it and we want our Pulitzer, now!

The motto of these proud, fiercely independent graduates of Colombia's Journalism School: "We speak truth to power! We dig out news that must be told!"

And he did question the Anointed One's tax plan, after all.

We may get a break from all this nonsense - according to an impeccable source (the gossip columnist for our local weekly), "Greenwich resident and TV’s favorite judge, Judy Scheindlin, was seen parking her cream-colored convertible Bentley in front of Douglas Parfumerie on Greenwich Avenue last Thursday afternoon." That should serve to swing the media circus from the mid-west and out our way in a heartbeat. But if that's insufficient to do the trick, there's also this: "Riverside resident, NFL great and announcer Frank Gifford was recently spotted tooling around town in Greenwich in his light blue convertible."

I think I'm going to unleash our own Amanda Von Stuckle on that last story - What it's Worth deserves a Pulitzer, too.

As our Suzie says,
"And that’s all for now."

Good news for homeowners and airlines, bad news for "experts"

Oil drops below $70 a barrel

Signs that an enfeebled U.S. economy is using less and less oil sent world crude prices below $70 a barrel for the first time in 14 months, a dramatic turnaround for a market that not long ago had some analysts predicting $200-a-barrel oil as early as next year.

When a befuddled and furious Hugo Chavez demanded of his own budget planners an explanation as to why he could no longer afford to buy Russian bombers, that group is reported to have chorused "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!" I hope so, anyway.

Dodd holds hearings on cause of mortgage failures

If this is what he thinks of his own constituents, imagine what he thinks of us?

Rep. Murtha calls his constituents racists

Ah, the politics of change - can't hardly wait.
(And dig that American flag - the man's a patriot, by God!)

Update:
Anyone who supports McCain is a racist

The marquee supporting the GOP ticket in "an area that is strongly African American was like putting a stink bomb in the middle of the living room," said University of Maryland political Professor Ron Walters.

Oh, we're in for a lovely time.

In Greenwich we'd have just tasered the little trouble maker.
9 year old schizophrenic school girl tossed in jail cell

There goes the neighborhood! Hedge funds to cut 10,000 jobs. The article also says $43 billion of investors' money has been yanked out of those funds, so far. Do you know how much Greenwich office space is occupied by hedge funds? And how many of those buildings are owned by foreign REITS? Neither do I, but I'll bet the answer is, "a whole bunch", and I know that, when REITS feel the pressure, they look to dump foreign assets for whatever they can get. That may cause rents to drop, but if rent drops in a vacant office building, does anyone hear?

19 Farley Street
Buy this house now, $1.045 million.
A reader asked about nice houses in the million dollar range - this is one. Its builder, Al Oliveira, does great work. I met Al when he and Rick Hvolbeck did just a stellar job on Pal Nancy's house, replacing work that had been done by far less talented carpenters in the past. If his workmanship displayed there is typical of his other work, and I'm sure it is, then this house was built well and tight. It certainly appeared to be when I toured it.

This was priced originally at $1.595 and, a year ago, that would have been a fair price. Now, after several price reductions that have dropped it below what it cost to build, it can be had for a hair over $1.0 million. That's an excellent buy and no, it's not my listing. But I'll be glad to sell it to you - give me a call.
Update: someone said she couldn't find the house on Raveis.com. It is a Weikert listing, but here are the details as posted by Raveis:19 farley Street, ML# 69428

230 Bedford Road

I really liked this house, way up near the end of Bedford Road, when it first came on the market in May of 2003. I didn't like its price, $5.9 million and neither did anyone else - it finally sold for $4.0 million a year later. The new owners have "renovated" it (open house is scheduled for next Tuesday, when we'll have a chance to see how encompassing that term is) and have placed it back on the market for $5.5 million. We'll see how that goes but the house does illustrate that wildly overpricing houses was happening in 2003, too.

Funny
Somewhere, a young lawyer is crying for help.

More on 25 Beechcroft
Peter Janis, listing agent for this house, is miffed hopping mad. He called today to point out that I haven't been in the house to appreciate its quality and that, in his opinion, the price of this house has nothing to do with "the numbers". With deference to Peter, whom I like and know to be a good, knowledgeable agent, I think numbers do control for at least two reasons. First is the affect a sale across the street for $6.2 has on a house going for $7.950. The lower priced house may indeed be, as someone described it, "a total fiasco" but what does the buyer know? Two 9,000 sq. ft houses, both brand new, one on a pond and the other across the street from it, how much does a little body of water add in value? I suspect that the answer is, "not $1,750,000". One can point out all the special features in a house, its superb quality and its great flow, all for naught. At least in my experience, the buyer will still ask, "so why would I pay that much more? They both have plasma TVs in the master bedroom, right?"

The second reason numbers count is that bank appraisers count them. These guys can't get into the houses they base their comps on so they mostly ignore special details built into the house they're examining. Does #16's construction match that of #25? They don't know, so they don't care. They look for the most recent sale in the neighborhood, calculate its square footage and age, toss a little pixie dust into the air and presto! They have a value. In this case, the appraiser need merely look across the street to see a house the same size and age of the subject property and, when he learns that it sold just last week for $6.2 million, he's going to be inclined to value the house he's appraising at close to the same price. Or so I think. I'm wrong on all sorts of things (like how to spell Patrick Daniel Moynihan) and I could be all wet on this one. I don't want to see Peter or his listing encounter difficulty; I pointed out the two houses merely to illustrate what I fear will become the dreaded domino effect in Greenwich housing, as more spec builders dump their projects for whatever they can get.

Well Darn!
There were 6-8 comments lined up waiting this morning for posting. I clicked on them and then pushed "reject" instead of "publish" (the buttons on my iPhone are too small for a clumsy-fingered guy like me) and now they're ...who knows where rejected electrons go? Anyway, sorry - please write again.

29 Irvine, OG
Two Sales of Note

29 Irvine sold yesterday for $2,150,000 which is a little less than 75% of what was asked for back in May and possibly far less than its original price in January - I can't tell; all records of the original price, except for the date of the listing contract, have disappeared from the Greenwich Multiple Listing Service's records. Would the GMLS expunge records? You tell me.

3 Old farms Road (north of the Post Road, in Old Greenwich)sold for $1,525,000, 76% of its original asking price back in April, $1,995,000 and $225,000 less than they paid for it ($1,750,000) in August, 2003. Ouch.

Lies, damn lies and statistics.
A real estate columnist in my old paper writes today that

"The Pending Home Sales Index representing contracts signed in August increased 7.4% from an upward revision in July and is 8.8% higher than August 2007."

That would certainly be encouraging, if it were accurate, and I'm confident that her paper will receive no complaints from its real estate advertisers about her column. And that, according to the paper's editor and publisher, is precisely the point.

But what if readers are being delivered a wheelbarrow full of dung? Here are the real statistics for Greenwich contracts.

July, 2008: 39; July, 2007: 40. Call it a draw.
August, 2008: 22; August, 2007: 46. That's 48% down, not 8.8% higher, by my math (and, though I don't pretend to understand what an "upward revision from July" means, Aug. '08's contracts represent a 56% decline from the preceding month, not a 7.4% increase).
September, 2008: 24; September, 2007: 33 - 28% decline
October 1-17, 2008: 6; October 1-17, 2007: 17 - 65% decline.

The last Democrat I admired (and probably ever will), Daniel Patrick Moynahan Moynihan, once said, "everyone's entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts." At least one paper in town didn't get that memo.

NYT: House prices have a long way (down) to go. Darn it, that ol' pessimist IB'er who plagues these pages must have gotten to them!
I'm kidding about our local Casandra of course and besides - in my darker moments I completely agree with him. One thing to note in the article is the "home price vs. rent ratio". According to experts, whoever they are, that ratio should be 15:1 and in parts of Florida it's still as high as 22:1, indicating plenty of room for more deterioration. What good are ratio's like this? Well, an earlier commentator on this blog noted that the price to earnings ratio was still way above historical levels and predicted that stocks would continue to fall. He was right.
I really don't know what Greenwich's sales to rent ratio is but I'll find that out today (hey - it's early, gimme a break) and post it here. I'm guessing that it's way above 15.

Bye, Bye!
Sternberg Quits
Our School Superintendent announced yesterday that she will not seek to have her employment contract renewed. She leaves in June.
Well, even if her students can't, now we know that Sternberg can read writing on the wall.
Time to consider Peter Tesei's (and others') idea of selecting our next Superintendent from among the ranks of our current principals, who presumably know the town, its students and the parents. And if none do, who are we hiring as our principals?

London Bridge (to NYC) is falling down This Britisher looks at the falling pound and Euro, examines this years sales of expensive New York condos to Europeans and concludes that the New York real estate business is about to fall on hard times . Perhaps he's hysterical [a newspaper reporter? You're kidding,right? Ed.] but bad news for that market is bad news for ours. Who do you think is, after selling their city co-ops, plunking the cash down here?

Politics for a Change! Biden funnels $2,000,000 campaign loot to family . But don't worry: Aides to Mr. Biden said all of the payments he has made to family members or their employers were aboveboard.

Well that's a relief. I was worried that, after only 38 years in Washington, the man had been corrupted!

Leather Jackets
When I sold my first book in 2000, I received a nice advance from the publisher and, suddenly flush with cash for the first time in years, I indulged myself: I had always wanted one of those cool horsehide WW II flight jackets and, as a young lad, my father forbade it - too much of a hooligan look, he felt. Well my father had died 12 years before, I was as adult as I'd ever be and so I went searching for the real thing. I found it at Lost Worlds, Inc., the link for which is above. I couldn't convert their pictures into postable jpegs (I'm sure it's possible but not with my limited skills) so you'll have to use the link to see the product. Or put up with my description. [ figured it out - God bless Google] Real horsehide, meticulously manufactured in NYC to the original Army Air Corp specifications and, all in all, a terrific jacket. Mine's 8 years old now and it's just about broken in. The only thing that's ever gone wrong with it was the little pull tab for the zipper that fell off last spring. An email to the owner, Stuart, got a replacement in the mail, free, that very same day.

So great service, too. They also make some good looking motorcycle jackets (my father would spin in his grave), 1950s western shirts, and all sorts of old fashioned quality garb that I've seen only in old movies.

I have the bonus of being reminded, every time I slip on my jacket, of my first publishing success. You don't need that rush to enjoy this clothing, just a boyhood memory of 12 O'clock High or Gary Cooper facing down bad guys on Main Street. So go to their website and check them out. Great company, great stuff. And if you know how to convert a "web archive" into a jpeg, please write.

Another funny tale about 25 Close Road
Funny to me, anyway. When my first book, The New Millionaire's Handbook had been accepted for publication and was being illustrated out in Kansas City the illustrator was obviously unable to comprehend the size of the monsters we were growing here in Greenwich. He kept sending me drafts of what he thought were mansions and I saw as hovels until, frustrated, I drove my daughter Kat and her camera up to this place and had her take some shots of it as it was nearing completion. I sent those off, the book came out and I thought nothing more of the house until it came up for sale. I brought my book to the broker open house and showed it to the listing agent: "Look! Your house is all over my book! Isn't that swell?" She closed the book and snapped, "put that away!"

As I said, funny to me.

Curmudgeon! From the comments section, this gloomy assessment from Ib'er, or retired investment banker:

Chris, I would agree that pricing will not go to zero.

I am beginning, however, to believe that the real estate correction is going to be much more severe than anyone is currently prepared for. Most prognosticators offered their peak to trough pricing views assuming a not severe recession or significant rising unemployment. I believe we are headed for a severe recession with much higher unemployment.

How far this will drive down prices I cannot guess. Nevertheless, the aforementioned factors added to the destruction of wealth in the stock market and lenders returning to prudent lending standards are/will be massive headwinds for future real estate pricing.

Retired IB'er

If you'll provide your address, IB'er, I'm sure the Greenwich Board of Realtors would be glad to send you a copy of "Everything's Coming up Roses", just to cheer you up. I've worn out my own copy and it didn't do me a damn bit of good.

Mortgage Money
Contrary to what you may have heard, it's still available, and at pretty good rates. My pal Nancy is in the process of refinancing (oh, those wonderful student loans!) with my own firm's mortgage banker, Mark Hawkins (203 257-5805) and approval was almost instant. I'm not flogging Ravies Raveis (tough when your boss points out that you spelled the name of your own G--D--- firm wrong) here and I certainly don't get a piece of the action (illegal and, by odd coincidence, unethical) but a number of large real estate firms have, out of self defense I suppose, pooled their cash and struck a deal with those banks that are still lending. The firms act as mortgage bankers rather than brokers and loans are getting done (for non-real estate customers as well as buyers, fyi).

What's changed, then? Nothing, if you got a loan 10 years ago, plenty if you borrowed last year. Credit score should be over 700 (there are exceptions, but 700 is a good starting point) you're definitely going to be putting 20% and perhaps even 30% down, documentation of income and assets is required - no more "no-doc" loans - appraisals may be tighter, and so forth. In short, the bankers have adopted the Who's credo as their own: "We won't be fooled again!" Of course, when it comes to reviewing the banks's own behavior over the past decade, one might be tempted to ask who was fooling whom, but that's for another day.

What to do with bankers who cling bitterly to their guns, religion and money? The NYT's Floyd Norris says, "jawbone them". Worked on asses, I recall, or do I have that wrong? IB'r, CEA, all you other financial wizards out there. Any suggestions?

In the Crapper Outhouse
In the past ten days, exactly four single family houses have gone to contract. That's not good, for sellers, but if you're tempted to buy right now, your position is pretty strong because you'll be just about the only game in town.

Spec Home Update
Or, as suggested by CEA and borrowing from Instapundit, "Carnival of the Spec Homes".
Either way, there are 44 new homes on the market priced from $6 million to $25 million. Most, but not quite all of them were built before the sellers had found buyers (Tommy Hilfiger's, $25 million on Round Hill Road, appears to be lived in) and at least one of them, 20 Langhorne, remains unbuilt and is offered as a completed house at $10.998 (down from $14.9) or as land, for $2.995. I'd bet it sells, if at all, for a building lot and I'm confident no more money will be put into this project to create another unsold house.

But that still leaves a large number of seemingly unwanted, very expensive buildings all looking for buyers. How many of those were put up by builders without the financial resources to hold on through this "rough patch" - or, if you prefer, "eff'in unmitigated disaster"? My guess is, not so many and if I'm right, we'll be seeing these at huge price reductions - perhaps 50% - or as bank-owned properties. Banks are always interested in getting their money back but they aren't in the business of holding real estate and they like to move those houses they do end up with so they, too may start whacking prices. What will that do to the other spec homes? Common sense suggests that if your stone and clapboard, 11,000 sq.ft. rah da da da house, priced at $12.5 million, is competing with essentially the same house down the street that's asking $5 ... you're in trouble.

Update: The house pictured here, by the way, 25 Close Road, isn't included in the inventory because it's currently off the market. Built in 2003 (by a Russian, I believe - a pioneer!) it never sold, despite all sorts of price "adjustments" from $15.9 million, up to $18 million and down again to, eventually, $15,750,000. Nothing worked. Of interest to me at least is that the seller went through about 5 brokers (it couldn't have been the price, it must have been the broker's fault) and only the last bothered to take her own pictures of the place - everyone else just used the first broker's efforts. I'd expect a little more if I were trying to sell a house in this price range but then, they were probably all very well dressed and to some sellers, that's all that matters.

From Dr. Helen (a/k/a "Instawife"): Is it time to go John Galt?

Perhaps the partisan politics we are dealing with now is really just a struggle between those of us who believe in productivity, personal responsibility, and keeping government interference to a minimum, and those who believe in the socialistic policies of taking from others, using the government as a watchdog, and rewarding those who overspend, underwork, or are just plain unproductive.

Obama talks about taking from those who are productive and redistributing to those who are not — or who are not as successful. If success and productivity is to be punished, why bother? Perhaps it is time for those of us who make the money and pay the taxes to take it easy, live on less, and let the looters of the world find their own way.

Sounds about right to me.

Gee, this doesn't look like any fun.

Chris Buckley fired
Christopher Buckley endorsed Barack Obama last week and has now been fired from his columnist's job at National Review, a magazine founded by William F. Buckley, Chris's father. What the F...?! I'm sensitive to the issue, fresh as I am from my own firing from the Greenwich Post for offending real estate advertisers, but you don't hire a columnist for his opinions and then fire him when he expresses that opinion. Not if you're a serious journal, you don't. Greenwich Post is just fluff, so I don't really give a hoot (and my blog is ever so much fun to write) but I subscribed to National Review for many years and was always impressed by its seriousness of purpose and excellence in writing.

I am by no means an Obama supporter, as regular readers of this blog will have suspected, but I am a huge fan of Buckley - his novels are some of the funniest works to come out of Washington ever - and if he has his doubts about McCain well, who doesn't? I would never resolve those doubts in favor of McCain's opponent but Buckley did. I'd say, "go, and sin no more" but I certainly would never stop reading him. This bitter election is causing once rational people, of all political persuasions, to lose their friggin' minds.

25 Beechcroft
Another Beechcroft spec house
This house is on the other side of Beechcroft from # 16, also a spec house, that started at $8.5 million and finally sold last week for $6.2. Undeterred by his competitor's loss, this past June this builder raised his own project's price to $7.950 from $ $7.5 million (which in turn, was an increase from the original price of $7.2). He paid $2.950 for the land back in July 2007 so I suppose he's stuck at a high price, but the sale price for the place across the street can't be encouraging.
Assuming a $400 per square foot construction cost ($3.6 million and adding in land cost of $2.950, this guy has $6,550,000 into the house before he begins considering pools, landscaping, conveyance taxes, commissions, overhead, etc. Not much wiggle room there, so he'd better hope for a (very) strong housing recovery, starting soon.

Can't we all get along?
Old folks battle it out over Obama/McCain in nursing home

George Manos, the 75-year-old Republican, told police that Edith Walker, the 73-year-old Democrat, jumped on his back and struck him in the head three to four times with her fists. Manos said two other elections workers had to pull Walker off his back, according to a report filed with Cuyahoga Falls police.

Heads slammed into walls; McCain urges supporters to "stand up and fight"; Biden calls McCain "fighting mad"; Obama supporters "ready for fight"

It's all pretty tiresome. Me? I'm going to hide from political news for the next three weeks and listen to Bob Dylan's My Back Pages on my iPod:

In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My existence led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Yes, my guard stood hard when abstract threats
Too noble to neglect
Deceived me into thinking
I had something to protect
Good and bad, I define these terms
Quite clear, no doubt, somehow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.

Palmer Hill condo's revisited
Earlier there was a discussion of this project and I admitted that I knew nothing of the builder's finances but did note that it was the largest project he'd attempted, a yellow light, in my view. This reader's experience would seem to justify that caution:

I bought pre-construction and pulled out when told that the condos and townhouses that are completed would be delayed over 10-12 months for what they are calling re-design. They are pushing dirt away slowly construction to a crawl to prevent over supply. They had 40+ people committed in early 2008 and that number dropped to 20ish or so once they annouced the delay. They builders hold a 20 year option to finish phase 1, 2 and 3. they can stop construction at anytime. Alot of early investors pulled out after they started offering options as incentives.

So, porceed slowly and carefully, is my advice.

A reader asks,

This post brings up a question that has been nagging me for a while...does it make sense to put money into a now depreciating asset in anticipation of making it more desirable to sell at a later date? What determines whether or not a house is a "tear down"?

I purchased my house in the early 90's after it had been completely redone by the previous owners (perhaps making it what you referred to as antediluvian). Luckily, the previous owners were a bit ahead of their time for 1990 and we do have 12 foot ceilings in the family room, playroom, kitchen and master bedroom as well as a double height entry hall. The kitchen is "state of the art 1990 corian" but with the economy lately, I am not going to be updating the kitchen any time soon. I have re-done two of the five bathrooms recently, but I think the others need to be done so the house will show well when it eventually goes on the market. We have put a lot of money into maintenance the past 15 years and built a beautiful pool and have had a lot of landscaping done. Am I crazy to put any more money into my house now that it isn't worth what it used to be?

Probably - I've always thought that any improvements a homeowner makes should be done with an eye towards his own enjoyment of that added feature (like your pool and beautiful landscaping) rather than resale. The law of entropy ensures that whatever you put into a house will age, fall apart, or at least go out of fashion - 10-year-old master bathrooms in trophy homes look positively dated when we agents see them on tour. Of course, the homeowners have been happily splashing away in that whirlpool tub for the preceding decade and, if they weren't moving, would probably enjoy it for another decade or two without noticing that time had passed them by but buyers see it differently.
So if you want a new kitchen with granite counters and all new appliances and you plan to stick around to enjoy it, go for it. Just don't count on getting much of your investment back when you move. There are tables out there showing what percentage of the cost of an improvement you can expect to get back upon resale, and all of them are under 100% (and all of them, I assume, don't figure on your using those improvements long enough to start their deterioration).

If I had a house that I was planning to sell soon I would not put much money into it except to fix obvious structural flaws, like a failed paint job, a rotten porch, a crumbling foundation, whathaveyou (I purposefully mention some big ticket items because these are things that really will hurt your resale value and should be addressed, regardless of expense). I would certainly not waste money on a new kitchen - the would-be buyers probably have different needs and taste than you and updating baths, while nice and which might make your house easier to sell, will not return any gain. I've written before of houses I've seen that didn't sell and whose owners were persuaded by their agent to do all these things I've just cautioned against. Now they have a house that, overpriced for the neighborhood to begin with, is even more out of whack. Far better to have cut the price $150,000 than to pour that same sum into a sinking ship. Price it right, sell it and move on - you can put your cash into the new house.

What makes a tear down? In happier days, any older house that sat on decent land was quarreled over by builders and first time home buyers alike - picture sea gulls fighting over a fish carcass. Now that the builders are on hiatus there are fewer tear downs and a much better opportunity for young families who can't afford a mansion to move in, maybe add that new kitchen you so wisely avoided, and live happily ever after. Personally, I like that development; I represent a couple of builders, whom I like and admire, but I also live in this town and I'd be glad to see the return of "normal" families.

Give my regards to Billy Joel
Realogy shutters its Corcoran branch in Hampton Bays . Things aren't going swimmingly for Realogy, which owns Sotheby's, Coldwell Banker, Century 21 and Better Homes & Garden Realty and is in turn owned by Apollo management which is shuttering 317 Linen's & Things stores. Leon Black, Chairman of Apollo and known in certain circles as "Papa Sotheby's" is reported to have said, "Oops! But what's a piddly $1.3 billion mistake - you been following Lehman stock lately?"

It's estimated that all 17,500 Linen's employees will lose their jobs. "Oops" indeed.

So what's wrong with my house? Nothing!
There's a house for sale, and I don't want to embarrass its owner by giving its address, that's been on the market for well over a year. It was originally priced at just over $6 million and now, a couple of brokers later, it's down to $4 1/2. Trouble is, I think it's still too high. The place was built for its current owners nearly 20 years ago and, in terms of style and what today's buyers are looking for, that's antediluvian. Tomorrow's taste may change again but for now, this is little more than a building lot, on a nice, but not great, street. It was crazy to price it at $6 million to begin with and with building lots on Round Hill Road going unsold for $3.5, I doubt this one, in an inferior location, will see much action. Just my opinion, and I certainly wish the seller the best of luck, but somewhere along the line, the market will speak loudly enough for this seller to hear it.

(Click to enlarge only known photo of Jeffrey Gendell)

Now he tells us: "Mistakes were made."

Greenwich resident (7.27 acres in RA-2 zone, 5 bedroom, 6 bath brick colonial circa 1936 - ironically enough, that would mean it was built in the last Great Depression) Jeffrey Gendell's hedge fund, Tontine Associates, is down a wee bit this year: 65%, as of September 30, and possibly a bit more today, say what? He's certainly made tons of money for himself and his investors over the past 10 years so I'm not going to lose sleep over the possibility that he'll have to move from that colonial. But I was struck by this quote:

[Gendell's] fund is named after 17th century Italian banker Lorenzo de Tonti, who invented an annuity where several partners invest and receive annual dividends. As each investor dies off their share is credited to the remaining partners, leaving the last man alive with all the money. The name is a play on Gendell’s desire to be the “last investor standing.”

What do I know? Maybe being 65% down for the year is to be on top of the heap right now and Greenwich is indeed hosting the last money manager still paying his groundskeepers. I never could figure out hedge funds but I feel better about that ignorance now that I know that they couldn't either.

16 Beechcroft
Beechcroft (behind North Street's St. Michael Church) has seen a wave of new construction lately and this spec house was in that wave. Priced at $8.5 million when it came on the market in June, 2007 2008, its builder must have grown tired of waiting: he sold it yesterday for $6.150 million; 28% off. Hope his profit margin was a big one.

Price reductions!
Some readers tell me they find this topic boring. I think it illustrates two things: the danger of overpricing your house to begin with; and what's happening to the market. Those who disagree are urged to skip this post and come back later.
42 Richmond Hill Road. original price $15.9 million; as of today, $9.950 - 37.5% off. Remember, if the first price is ridiculous, a huge price reduction is not necessarily an indication of how much the market has dropped. Still, someone must have received a pretty hefty dose of reality out there on Richmond Hill.
45 Baldwin Farms South. Original price last January, $9.750. Today, $6.450; 34% drop.
38 Khakum Woods, land. Original price $8.5, today, $5.5; 35% drop. The pretty house pictured above is an artist's idea of what a house might look like, if it were built. As it is, you get a foundation only. Considering that the current seller paid $4.8 million for the lot in May, 2005, in a stronger market, I'm not sure that's enough.

There were another 17 price changes reported today, but these were the most interesting.
Update: Zillow.com
If you believe Zillow, 45 Baldwin Farms should be worth only $4.694 million but if I were the builder I wouldn't despair: Zillow has him in Glenville, rather than off Round Hill Road, and uses houses on such desireable spots as Thunder Mountain Road to compare value. Bah, humbug. Its possible that in this market their pessimism might just prove out, but I'd be more confident in their calculations if they got the location right.

ACORN attempts to register Mickey Mouse to vote
ACORN and the Demmerkrats say, "nothing to see here, move along, move along", but haven't yet commented (to my knowledge) on this story:Indiana registers give up screening 5,000 ACORN-submitted registrations after the first 2,100 proved bogus. That's right - every single one. The story omits, by the way, to mention that ACORN works for only one candidate - wonder who that is?
I've been posting these stories for awhile now, but here's a Complete Guide to ACORN's Fraud.
Of course, as ACORN keeps working, no guide can be complete. For instance, there's this.

Turns out that “Doodad Pro” and “Good Will” are not the only phony contributors to Barack Obama’s presidential campaign. The New York Times finally bestirred itself to apply some basic investigative journalism attention to the Democratic presidential nominee’s donor list. The Times found nearly 3,000 other questionable donors like “Jgtj Jfggjjfgj” and “Dirty West” after what the paper admitted was just a cursory look at the Illinois senator’s September financial filings. But then Times reporters Michael Luc and Griff Palmer revealed an incredible level of naivety by stating “it is unclear why someone making a political donation would want to enter a false name.”
Unclear? What other motive could there be for using a phony name and a nonexistent address to make multiple small donations using a single credit card than to evade U.S. election laws? Such journalistic gullibility may explain why bloggers have been on this story for months and the Times is only now noticing. The Atlas Shrugged blog first broke the story of such suspicious donors behind Obama back in July after noticing little gems like this in the Illinois senator’s official FEC filings:

Name: Hbkjb, jkbkj
City: Jkbjnj
Works for: Kuman Bank
Occupation: Balanon Jalalan
Amount: $1,077.23

In case you are wondering, there is no such thing as the Kuman Bank. It is difficult to see how the Obama campaign could have mistakenly accepted such an obviously duplicitous donation - and thousands more like it - in good faith. Yet the campaign is now claiming to be the victim of “Internet fraud.”

Then there’s the question of whether foreign nationals are contributing to the Obama campaign. There is more than enough evidence to warrant a full-scale investigation by the Federal Election Commission, including the $32,332.19 that appears to have come from two brothers living in a Hamas-controlled Palestinian refugee camp in Rafah, GA (that’s Gaza, not Georgia). The brothers’ cash is part of a flood of illegal foreign contributions accepted by the Obama campaign. Potentially at issue, according to a complaint filed last week by the Republican National Committee, is as much as half of the $427 million he’s already collected. In any case, a complete FEC audit became an even more urgent matter after MSNBC reported that Obama’s Muslim outreach director quietly met with top Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) officials in an uncharacteristically unpublicized event in Springfield, Virginia on September l5th. The FEC’s primary job is to protect the integrity of our federal election process. With this many red flags flying and barely three week left before election day, there’s no time to lose if voters are to have all the information at hand before casting their ballots.

Obama - New Politics, for a change.

As usual, great insight and commentary, this time on corporate (and governmental) owning up.
From my favorite blogger,James Lileks

The theme of the conversation was responsibility, and why no one in the current crisis seems willing to own up to this mess. I said that no one could see an advantage to admitting culpability, however small, and if I had thought of it I’d have brought up the Japanese; can’t have a big failure over there without someone sweating, bowing, apologizing, banging his head into the table, generally behaving as though he deserved to be stoned. And those are the showy ones who earn only contempt; it's the guys who go home and hang themselves that really get a round of applause. It’s almost impossible to imagine that here, what with the diminished likelihood of hosswhipping, or a dispassionate, sustained interlude of public caning. If we interviewed any of the people responsible for this situation and asked them what they planned to do now, we wouldn't be surprised if they said they were going to Disneyworld.

Who's crying now?

This was reported by the Wall Street Journal at least a year ago but I'm delighted the man's troubles continue.
Oil production slumps 25% under Chavez. And it will continue to drop, which is what happens when your fire all the people who know how to produce something and replace them with political know-nothing appointees. I'm sorry for the people of Venezuala but many of them thought a free lunch was their due. El wrongo, and oil's price is plummeting. Hee hee.

Do "Green" houses command a premium?
This story from Australia suggests they do, but I have my doubts. I've seen no evidence of any such premium paid in Greenwich and even down under, there seems to be more poll evidence than actual sales. Yes, people say they'll pay more, but that may be (okay, I suspect it is ) because no one wants to admit to a stranger that they're a coal burning ecological vandal.

As I've said before, I think energy efficient homes are a great idea and I personally know, because I've done so, that I would pay extra to cut drafts by installing new windows, adding vapor barriers and extra insulation and all that. But again, when I've compared the sales prices of truly innovative houses with those of their plebian brothers, I detect no difference. This is also true, by the way, when it comes to quality of construction: buyers look at the location, the number of bedrooms and how many plasma TVs are hooked into the master bedroom and that's about it. Quality, like energy efficient, more comfortable features, seems to fall into the "nice to have" rather than "must have" category, at least when people are speaking with their wallets and not to pollsters.
Update: (10:32 pm)
It seems to me that a warm feeling that one's doing her bit for the environment only goes so far. Witness, for example the willingness of most residents to wash their garbage and place it in a blue recycling bin and then fly a private jet to Colorado to ski at an area whose development raped and destroyed a pristine mountain (I'm much more of a backpacker than a skier, obviously). But self interest always rules, so if I were a "green" builder or represented a green house, I'd translate the home's ecological virtues into dollars and cents and put it all on a single sheet of paper. Most buyers worry about monthly payments and if that gas bill is going to be less by, say, $400 a month, put it in writing and win a sale.
Can a builder quantify these amounts? I don't know - he (or the window, furnace and super-insulation manufacturers) should be able to; if not, then it's all a bunch of hot air, you should pardon the expression.

20 Carpenter's Brook

Does this look like a $4.0 million family room to you?
It didn't to me when I first saw this place (convenient to I-684, if you like that sort of thing. Can't hear your spouse nag, for instance), nor did the rest of the house. The market must have agreed because it hasn't sold and has slowly declined in price from $4 million to $2.4 million. Once again, don't interpret this as evidence of a collapsing market but rather, an unwise pricing decision made long ago.
Update: My readers are right: this is the house shown in the McClatchy forecolosure vido (check comments for link, if interested). Their eyes are better than mine - I toured the house (a year or so ago but that's no excuse) and didn't recognize it - they did. Off to get new glasses.

A reader asks, "what is the Golden Triangle?" According to this Wikipedia entry,

The Golden Triangle is one of Asia's two main illicit opium-producing areas. It is an area of around 350,000 square kilometres that overlaps the mountains of four countries of Southeast Asia: Myanmar (Burma), Laos, Vietnam, and Thailand. (Other interpretations of the Golden Triangle also include a section of Yunnan Province, China.) Along with Afghanistan in the Golden Crescent and Pakistan, it has been one of the most extensive opium-producing areas of Asia and of the world since the 1950s.

Oh! You mean Greenwich? In Greenwich, my source for all things pertaining thereto, Tom Gorin of Cleavland, Duble & Arnold, tells me that Mrs. Duble herself used to refer to "the Golden Circle", an area encompassing the land between North Street and Riversville Road and extending south to the Lake Avenue circle. According to Tom, the term dates back at least to the 1930s and he's yet to figure out who was left out when the circle was chopped into a triangle. Did it extend north of the as-then-unbuilt Merritt Parkway? Neither of us knows but I've always heard it applied to the mid country, so I think not.

But that was then. Now, realtors and builders use the term pretty loosely to add cachet to whatever they're peddling. Sort of like that standard advertising phrase, "on the Stamford/Greenwich border". You know, reading that, that the land's in Stamford. No self-respecting Greenwich realtor ever admits that Stamford even exists.

Perhaps it is a circle after all: A drug buyer seeking wares today can probably have as much success in Greenwich's Golden Triangle as that of Asia's. Go figure.

"Not My Job" contest, Riverside entry
The town is apparently trying to lay down a dividing line on the curve on Riverside Avenue just before St. Paul's Church. If they follow its guidance, drivers will swerve back and forth from one side of the road to the other, repeatedly. I'll stop by later and attempt a shot with my iPhone's camera but here's a snap from the web that seems to sum up the attitude of our line painters.

Newspapers' Internet Revenue Declining
I wish traditional newspapers well - without them, I'd have a far less interesting day and because I have a number of friends and relatives earning their daily bread at them, I'd be sorry to see them go. But they, for the most part, aren't adapting well to the Internet. Greenwich Time, for instance, insists on running the most annoying ad imaginable on its front web page. Click on to read and a fake "post-it" note from Greenwich Hospital scrolls around the screen. It's impossible to shut the damn thing off and impossible to read while the ad runs its course. How inviting.

And that paper is not alone in posting selectively. Columnists often aren't up on the net, articles disappear while moving from hard copy to the electronic version, what news there is is often posted hours after the fact, reader feedback is curtailed and made awkward to submit, "registration" is often required - who the hell wants to submit a full personal bio to some stranger just to read a story? If the guys running these things ever checked, they'd discover that a surprisingly large percentage of their readership was 90-year-old women living in the North Pole; now there's some useful information - and on and on.

Can newspapers save themselves? I don't know but, unless they get with it, I fear not.

I like this trend
God knows what will happen to this happy line by 4:00 PM, but things are looking brighter this morning. I was thinking over the weekend - an unusual activity for me but it was a boring, if quite sunny weekend and ... - As a real estate agent, I'll do okay no matter what happens to prices, once we get some stability. If prices stay really, really low, Greenwich will still attract buyers and they'll be more of them who can afford to live here. I'd miss the occasional sweet commission from that $7 million sale but the bread and butter of real estate, prior to the run up of the past two or three years, was the $1.5 -$2.5 house. If that range drops to $750 - $1.5 well, I'll have to sell more houses to make the same money, but life will go on. I need to keep busier anyway, as some of the postings on this blog will attest.

But I do worry. There are 3 Fountain households in Greenwich and it's been comforting to reflect on their "value". We all felt, if not rich, assured that there were assets there to fall back on. I'm much more worried, however, by the toll this is all taking on my friends' jobs. Already I know folks who've lost their employment not only on Wall Street but in all the peripheral areas - career placement, for example, contracts when no one's hiring. Builders are hurting, and carpenters, and who wants to hire consultants when business is in the toilet? Except for our public schools, however, but then they're immune from this stuff.

So I hope that the panic subsides and the economy recovers. I'm not at all confident that it will; there are too many long-deferred problems out there to make anyone sanguine, but I can, and so I do, hope. Not much else to do.

546 North Street
A reader asked about this property and I'm happy to write about it because I like it very much. It's set way off North Street on 5 1/2 acres, was built in 1924 and, although the listing sheet makes no mention of it, has been maintained and updated through the years. Great yard, very nice house, good location. It's my own firm's listing, just so you know, but very much not my own listing - I wish. Originally listed at $7.995 million it's come down 25% to $5.995. I'm not blowing my own horn here, but its new price is much closer to what I suggested when I participated in a price opinion inspection. Sometimes sellers, particularly estates, have their own idea of value, but even they have to hear the marketplace's response, eventually.

Anyway, it's a grand old place, in very good shape, and I think it speaks to what Greenwich used to look like. Which I consider to be a good thing; others' opinions may differ.

I posted on this yesterday but if you missed it,...Britain takes over Royal Bank of Scotland. 60% anyway. What will this do to the corporate headquarters in Stamford? Beats me, but I would not plan on setting up a catering service for traders on site, at least for now.

17 Khahum Wood Rd
The Winner!
In an earlier posting I stated that the biggest loser in price cuts was 66 Cherry Valley Road, listed for $20 million and sold for $11.4 million, or 57% of its asking price. I forgot (because its listing was deleted) 17 Khakum Wood Road, whose builder, Mark Mariani, originally listed it at $25 million and, after slowly marking it down to $13.5 before deleting it from our MLS records, eventually sold it privately for $12.5 million. That success earns Mariani the coveted "What Was I Thinking Award" for 2005, 2006 and 2007 (the years he first listed it, reduced it and sold it). That's a trifecta, no? When this first came on the market I suggested in print that there were equal or better houses available for half its price, a comment that caused the builder to permanently ban me or any member of my firm from the privilege of viewing his subsequent creations. I paid no heed, of course, but I did take a certain satisfaction in seeing where this house ended up. Instead of banning me, maybe he should have listened.

Update: A reader asks how this particular Waterloo compares with Antares own fiasco on Langhorne Lane and, I do so hate to break this to Mr. Mariani, but it appears that Antares has edged him out of the title by a hair. Langhone was listed for $25 million in April '07, increased (Antares genius at work)to $28 million that October and sold this August for $13.75, or 49% of the highest listing price. Mariani may squeal, but I decide the rules in this contest and I've determined that calculating mark downs will be done using the highest, not the first, asking price. Antares is out of the residential construction business now but they were certainly competitive for the title when they were building. 16 Cherry Blossom Road, for instance, part of their failed mansion project in our N.E. corner (which any realtor could have told them was a dead spot for sales) listed at $10.9 and sold 1 1/2 years later in December '07 for $6.6 million, 60% of its asking; not enough to win the award but a darn good try. I'll miss those boys.

Here's a guy who says the stock market's about where it should be - 15 X earnings and you should wait for it to really drop so you can pay discount prices, not retail. Interesting.